The Last Jedi misses old Star Wars beat

Splitting opinion: The Last Jedi

Along with many supportive comments, there have been some pretty harsh things posted online by moviegoers distressed about the latest Star Wars movie, The Last Jedi. Perhaps like no other episode in the 40-year old franchise, Episode VIII has split fans' opinions. Why is it so divisive - and is it justified?

It is almost a full week since I watched the film, and still I'm conflicted about its merits. On one level it was a good, standard movie - a little over-long, but entertaining. But at a deeper level it did not feel like a Star Wars film. There was an emptiness in the storytelling. It lacked the soul and heart that defined the original trilogy and, to a lesser extent, the prequels.

Having allowed my thoughts to settle during the past week, I rate The Last Jedi as a 2.5 out of 5. It is an adequate film, but somewhat lacking. My views on the positives and negatives of the film are below.

SPOILER ALERT: The remainder of this post discusses aspects of The Last Jedi, including plot and characters. If you intend to watch the film and don't want to know what is in it, read no further.

The positives:

1. The cinematography on the whole is well done and gives the movie a quality aesthetic; many of the sets and location shots are a joy to view and well framed. 
2. Likewise, the space battles are more interesting than in some of the previous installments. The battle engagements are shorter, more focused, and the special effects are beyond fault.
3. The interaction between Luke and Rey is fascinating and insightful, up to a point - because there was plenty of scope for more to have been achieved here - in particular in relation to Luke's torment and why he had taken the path he did. Mark Hamill's acting is magnificent and one of the film's highlights.
4. And then there is Kylo Ren's uneven relationship with the dark side of the Force, so dynamically portrayed by Adam Driver that he overshadows Rey as the most interesting protagonist on the screen. 
5. The developing story between Kylo and Rey is now clearly the signature theme for the trilogy, and it made for the most compelling on-screen interactions.
6. The throne room showdown was memorable (albeit, with the proviso below regarding Snoke).
7. Leia's no-nonsense final flourish that puts Poe in his place, twice.
8. A blisteringly brilliant standoff as Luke faces Kylo and The First Order's ground attack AT-ATs.

The negatives:

1. There's no real hero. Rey is surely meant to be the heroine of the piece, but she is unengaging and that is worrying two films into a trilogy. Her background and deeper motivations remain opaque. It is hard to really care for a character that you know so little about. The classic hero's journey is absent from Rey's character. All the interesting development stages have been left out. Also, she lacks emotional empathy, other than the edgy interplay with Kylo. It might be that this is all by design. We have one film left to find out.
2. As mentioned in the positive list Carrie Fisher's performance of Leia was fine, but there was potential for more. For example, when the communications operator reported that the call of help had been received at the outer rim but no one was responding, had it been shown, the sadness on Leia's face could have been a showstopper, particularly when immediately followed by Luke stepping out from the shadows. As for Leia's flying through space scene, the less said, the better. I'm fine with the concept - but what we got looked ridiculous.
3. The new charactors have not developed in any compelling ways. Finn looked the most promising, but his side adventure with Rose was underwhelming and a drag to the main narrative. Poe has yet to fulfill the potential he showed in The Force Awakens.
4. Chewbacca was a bit player. The meeting with Luke could have given something; that moment when Luke realised Han was no longer around. But the moment was squashed.
5. Luke's finale was uneven. There was the brilliance of his emergence from the smoke during the AT-AT standoff, but his ultimate departure missed a beat. Considering the film's nondescript ending, it was a shame it did not climax at, or around, that moment. If only the movie had flipped to the Millennium Falcon departing with the rebels and then back to Luke on the rock, the sunset, the empty cloak. End.
6. The bad guys. Are there any? General Hux is a shallow, ineffectual baddie who from the get-go is the fall-guy/punchbag for Snoke and Kylo. As for Snoke, so much potential thrown away with his highly anti-climatic demise. Who was he, where did he come from? Perhaps there's a bubblegum card that can help.
7. The film creaked under the sheer weight of its palette of characters. I had a hard job feeling connected or invested in the fate of most of them. The scripting left out the humanising elements.
8. Plot holes. So many, including a slow-motion space chase waiting for ships to run out of gas when it would appear simple enough to have a few star-cruisers head them off. And the casino subplot was weak and added little value to the main narrative.

Reflecting back two years to The Force Awakens, that was a fun and action-packed romp. Yes, it did retread past movies in the series, but it could be forgiven this as it was the scene setter for the new trilogy. The Last Jedi should have been the consolidating episode, but it failed to establish an emotional tether with the main protagonists.
The handling of Luke's character is questionable, and Mark Hamill has said so in blunt terms in interviews during the past two years. While I acknowledge the realigning of his character arc is a valid development (though not the only one), it cries out for some exposition. The Last Jedi missed that opportunity. I hope the next and final installment rounds things out.

Finally, I question the decision to not have the trilogy planned in some semi-structured way. I have read that director Rian Johnson scrapped an outdated draft of what Episode VIII might look like, and wrote his own version picking up from where JJ Abrams left the storyline and characters at the end of The Force Awakens. This "pass the parcel" approach to story sculpting must have some bearing on the disjointed feel of The Last Jedi.
And the film was longer than it needed to be. A sharper focus and editing would have made a big difference.

As I watched the quiet departure of the audience from the cinema at one of the early sold-out showings, to me it was a sign that this movie lacked the knockout stuff that many have come to expect from the Star Wars universe. As I mentioned earlier, I left the cinema not feeling that I'd witnessed a Star Wars film. It wasn't the same. There were too many diversions, too little depth, and too many unsatisfying gaps. It may be that Episode IX will deliver the answers that will cast The Last Jedi in a more favourable light. All now hangs on that 2019 release. Back to you Mr Abrams.

To end with here is a video of Mark Hamill expressing his views on The Last Jedi version of Luke:



And here is a trailer, and a very good one, for The Last Jedi....

A life lesson from my fastest half-marathon

Thirty years ago: crossing the finish line of my fastest half-marathon.

Five miles into the race and with another eight remaining, I was having doubts about my ability to stick with the group of runners directly in front of me.

Up ahead the lead runners were out of sight. I was tagging along in the chasing group - and I do mean tagging along.

The group of five were doing consistent six-minute miles. So was I. The difference was I was hanging off the back of the pack, relying on sheer willpower to prevent myself from being dropped. Yes, I had a degree of confidence to stick with the pace, but it was wafer-thin.

Three months earlier I had barnstormed a half-marathon in 1 hour 19 minutes - taking 13 minutes off my previous best. However, that confidence boost had been dented when, two weeks before the current race, I'd run another half-marathon while recovering from a bad cold. I finished in 1:28 - not bad by previous standards, but way off my new record.

Now I was struggling to stay with the six-minute mile pace. I mentally set myself a target of reaching five miles in 30 minutes, after which I'd allow myself to fall back to a more comfortable pace. But there was a problem.

The group of runners were taking it in turns to act as front man - taking on the pace-setting duties for the others then switching over after a mile to let the next man do his bit.  I'd been so preoccupied trying to keep up at the back of the pack I didn't notice that I was next in line to pull my weight up front.

The conditions were perfect for long distance running. There was virtually no breeze, it was cool and the open countryside was shrouded by a thin mist. We had reached five miles bang on target. That's when the others called on me to get in place up front and do my shift. I had a choice to either buckle and fade away like a douche bag, or step up and lead the group through mile six.

Who's next? I'm hanging at the back of the chasing group,
shortly before taking over the paceman duties at five miles.

So there I was, very much feeling like the odd man out at the back. Doing your fair share of the pacesetting duties when required was an unspoken rule of the sport. I moved to the lead and decided that as bad as I'd been struggling, I would put in my one-mile shift to keep that six-minute mile canter going, even if emptied my reserves and punished me for the remainder of the race.

I concentrated on my running gait and cadence, making sure it did not slip from the pace I'd been following. There was a sense of honour in fulfilling the lead runner duty; carrying the group one mile closer to the finish. I didn't want to let them down, or require them to take over before I had fulfilled my mile. It would hurt but I'd stick it out, come what may. Then something happened.

As I pushed on, eager to be as competent a pacesetter as the others, I began to feel better. My running gained a bit more bounce. Before I knew it, the six miles marker appeared and I prepared to relinquish my spot at the front to allow the next man to do his pace shift.

Two things had happened during that mile. My watch showed I'd gone faster than a six-minute mile, it was about 10 seconds quicker. I glanced over my shoulder to see who was preparing to take the lead duties and saw the group of runners were no longer in a pack. They had started to string out, they were breathing heavier and none were near enough to take over the pace. I was feeling better, so I stayed at the front and added a second mile of pacesetting.

What had happened was the opposite to what I had feared. Rather than slowing down, I'd found the experience of being in front had lifted me. From somewhere inside I'd been able to tap into extra energy. It was a similar sensation to taking part in team relays, where a sense of duty to do all possible not to let down the others resulted in a level of effort that many times surpassed what might have been achieved as an individual.

I'd only slightly overcooked the pace in that first mile of pacesetting. The next mile also came in at around 5 mins 50 secs. I looked around to see if the others were ready to take back the pace role, but the group was now strung out in a line. My reinvigorated legs had taken the pace marginally beyond the fixed effort of the opening five miles. I pushed on, looking to see how much longer I could sustain that level, and with each mile completed my confidence grew that a personal best could be on the cards. It was. I ran beneath the finish line clock in 1:17:25.

During the next 12 years I ran more sub-1:20 half marathons, but none as swiftly as that one exactly 30 years ago this weekend.

As for the other runners in the group; well, the race changed complexion when my pacing altered the six-minute miles to 5:50 miles. They had been settled on running the half-marathon in the high 1:18s or low 1:19s, but most of them were pulled through faster as they followed my lead - indeed, one is seen about 100 metres behind at the finish line photograph. I feel they got an unexpected benefit too.

So what did I learn from it? It taught me that even when feeling tired and wanting to back off and sit back, doing the opposite can sometimes have a cathartic effect; pushing though the barrier of discomfort led to a place of more strength than I thought existed. And secondly, I learnt that taking on a dutiful role gave an added inner drive to succeed.

Tom Petty's many moments of brilliance

Modern classic: Tom Petty at Ventura Boulevard, San Fernando Valley, in
the 1989 video for Free Fallin'. The song mentioned many "Valley" locations

Tom Petty was one of the great modern singer songwriters of America. His output around the late 1980s and early 1990s was stunning, and it is this period that I most associate with his music.

Petty, 66, died in Santa Monica on Monday after a heart attack. Here are two personal vignettes relating to Petty and his music.

The catchy melodies and lyrics of his biggest hits, particularly the two I rate most highly, Learning to Fly and Free Fallin', were firmly etched in my mind by 1995 - the year I enrolled for a semester of study at a Los Angeles college in the San Fernando Valley.

The relevancy of that is Petty's own connection to "The Valley." For many years he lived in the neighbourhood of Encino, and some of his songs and videos show or reference places in the San Fernando Valley - the vast metropolitan sprawl that is separated from downtown Los Angeles by the Hollywood Hills.

On my twice daily route to college through the neighbourhood of Reseda, or anytime I travelled along Ventura Boulevard (which passed one block away from the college), I could not help but hear Free Fallin' playing my head. Reseda, Ventura Boulevard and nearby Mulholland are all mentioned in the song, which was only a few years old at that time. The song's lyrics created a degree of comforting familiarity with my immediate surroundings, even though I was 7,000 miles from home.

Watch for the UFO: Tom Petty in the classic video for Learning to Fly

Rewinding eight years to 1987, and an October evening just outside the city of Birmingham, England. I was at the National Exhibition Centre to see a sell-out concert at the immense indoor venue.

Of the three artists on the bill I was familiar with two; the headliner Bob Dylan and the opening act Roger McGuinn, the former lead singer and guitarist of The Byrds. Sandwiched between the two was a group I'd never heard of called Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. I was there to see Dylan. The fact that McGuinn was also on the bill was a bonus. And I figured if Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were touring with Dylan and had been given a higher billing than McGuinn, then they must be pretty good.

McGuinn was on form, although his short set barely allowed him time to play more than a few of the jangle pop hits that made The Byrds famous in the 1960s, one being a cover version of Dylan's Mr Tamborine Man. This contrasted with Dylan, who barely lit up the stage with his disconnected performance.

Which brings me to Petty. That evening I had no expectations and so the surprise turned out to be all the greater. He and his band gave a performance between McGuinn's set and Dylan's that turned out to be the most enjoyable of the night. The rock-pop songs soared with an energy that seemed to bounce off the walls. Petty was having the time of his life performing on the same stage as two of his musical idols, and he was doing all he could to share some of that zest and fun with everyone in the audience of 15,000 - and succeeding.

At the time, the songs I consider to be Petty's finest had yet to be recorded, but during the next few years he would release I Won't Back Down, featuring George Harrison and Ringo Starr (Starr was only in the the video), the aforementioned Learning to Fly and Free Fallin', and was a founding member of the supergroup The Traveling Wilburys, along with Dylan, Harrison, Roy Orbison and ELO's Jeff Lynne.

The Traveling Wilbury's two albums spawned hits such as Handle With Care and End of the Line. It is fitting that Petty became a founding member of that short-lived group filled with musical legends, because he came to the world of music first and foremost as a fan. Just before his eleventh birthday he shook hands with Elvis Presley, then two years later he watched the US television debut appearance of The Beatles, at which point he decided he wanted to pursue a career as a musician in a band. It wasn't until the late 1970s that Petty and the Heartbreakers secured a contract with a major record label, but they quickly rose to success and reached a creative pinnacle in the late 80s and early 90s.

Petty was on the cusp of his greatest success when I saw him in concert in 1987. In the years that immediately followed I watched out for his records, and that proved to be perfect timing to catch the richest treasures of his career. Many of his American rock-pop classics have endured for a quarter-century and will last much longer.

Farewell Mr Petty, and thank you for the music.

Below: The official videos for Free Fallin' and Learning to Fly.





Further reading: An interview with the girl from the Free Fallin' video (and what she is doing now), can be found on this blog

Lana Del Rey's 'Lust for Life'

Memorising songs: Lana Del Rey singing in the video for Love,
the opening track of her album Lust for Life

It is almost a decade since I last bought an album by an artist I'd never heard of before.

Towards the end of last month I purchased Lust for Life, by a singer whose name I had to double check.

I was sitting under a beach shade, interviewing an empath, when one of my ears tuned into the background music being played at the beach bar. I was focused on the interview, and what the empath had to say was fascinating - it resulted in an interesting article. But try as I might, the unusual song quietly playing in the background was also incessantly vying for a corner of my attention.

The tune was reminiscent of Radiohead's Creep, so much so that I thought it might be a cover version, yet the words were unfamiliar. There was a quality in the singing that drew me in. The song ended and I made a mental note to find out who it had been. After concluding my interview I strolled to the beach bar and asked about the track. The singer was Lana Del Rey - a name that meant nothing to me.

New music: Lana Del Rey on the cover of Lust for Life.

Living on an island and not being tuned into TV, radio or keeping up with many other cultural portals, I had to go and Google this mysterious (to me) singer. That's when I found out she was one of the most successful singers of the past five or six years.
Who knew? Everyone else, apparently.

The album playing at the beach was new and had only been released two weeks earlier. I found a video for the opening track on YouTube. Love was mesmorising, as was the video which had evident shades of M83's We Own the Sky. With my curiosity now further heightened, I bought Del Rey's Lust for Life.

With no previous exposure to her music I could only evaluate the album on what I found. I had no preconceived ideas; to me she was a new artist emerging from a void. The album is a refreshing and intriguing collection of songs and styles. The first three tracks, Love, Lust for Life, and 13 Beaches are standouts. The quality hardly slips, but as I got into the second half of the record the seam of gold broadened with ever more beautifully crafted and delivered songs, such as God Bless America - And All the Beautiful Women in It, Heroin, Change and Get Free (the song I heard at the beach).

Five of the tracks feature collaborations with the likes of Weeknd, A$AP Rocky, Playboi Carti, and Stevie Nicks. There is a mixture of styles and influences sprinkled in, particularly on the two tracks with A$AP Rocky. And then there is the timeless, poignant beauty of Tomorrow Never Came, a song co-written and performed with Sean Ono Lennon.

Del Rey's vocal delivery and lyricism is a refreshing break from usual. I'm thankful to have discovered Lust for Life. Someone remarked that empaths tune-in to the feelings and thoughts of the person they are speaking to. I'm not sure what the empath at the beach might have deduced as my attention was semi-diverted to the music drifting across the sand, but I suspect he might have wondered why he could sense so many musical notes dancing around my head.

Eating Clouds (2008 edition) being retired

Two editions: The original Eating Clouds, on the left, was released in
late 2008. It was followed in 2009 by a more compact edition.

The original edition of Eating Clouds is being retired. That is, the 2008 version published through Lulu will no longer be available.

That edition contained the first version of the later stand-alone novel Dolphin Girl.

But don't worry if you haven't yet picked up a copy of Eating Clouds, because the smaller edition, published in 2009 through CreateSpace, will continue to be the available worldwide.

The later edition is by far the more popular seller and the most widely distributed; the main difference between it and the original is the absence of Dolphin Girl. Removing the novel meant the smaller version could be retailed at a more attractive price, and also made sense as I had started to work on an expanded version of Dolphin Girl, which eventually was released in its own right in 2015.

I have decided to discontinue the bulky, Lulu edition of Eating Clouds as it makes no sense for the outdated version of Dolphin Girl to still be out there. Online retailers such as Amazon are likely to have a few of the old editions in stock, but once they are gone only be the compact edition will be available. As of yet, there is no e-book version of Eating Clouds.

'Alice' novel: the first draft

Raw story: at a rate of 500 words per day, it took just under
three months to complete the first draft of Alice Out Of Time.

The first draft of Alice Out Of Time is complete, stretching to approximately 52,000 words.

Since the beginning of June I've written 500 words each morning until the story I envisaged was fully captured.

There are probably as many different writing process as there are people in the world. I'm using this update to document my writing regime.

With Alice, the end goal is to have a final draft of 80,000 words, which is pretty much the standard-size for a novel. At this stage I'm confident that will be achieved. The first draft is the story in skeleton form - the basic scaffolding around which the deeper details will be placed.

In this raw and basic form the story pacing is super-fast. Keeping the momentum flowing through every scene is important. Other than two or three key characters, everyone else is referred to simply as "man" or "woman" or (spoiler alert) "woman in the coffee shop". Buildings are largely described as "building" and some of the towns and places have yet to be named. All those things get filled in during subsequent re-writes.

The first run-through is all about the core story and finding out if it works and delivers. I wrote every morning when I got up, straight out of bed. There was no stopping for breakfast or internet news. The first priority was to fulfill the 500 words for the day. Which usually took between 30 and 45 minutes.

And yes, it was every single day. Keeping the momentum up helped with the flow, and meant my mind was always engaged in the story and thinking of ways to express the next development. There was no stopping to correct grammar or spelling. And sometimes I would change the direction of a scene mid-stream, or write it fresh from a different angle the next day (but not deleting the first attempt - just writing the new version straight beneath).

I wrote the story out of sequence, opting to follow a single main character to the end, and then doing the same for the next main character. The exception to this rule was when it was necessary to have chief characters interacting in the same scenes.

There was no writing done on a computer. Instead, I wrote on a Neo2, a small, battery-powered word processor, which you can see in the background of the photograph. This removed distractions. The Neo2 is purely a word processor. It has no internet capabilities, so there was no temptation to check e-mails, social media, etc.

Secondly, the Neo2 screen shows only four lines of text. So that did away with the temptation of scrolling back through writing from previous days to tidy up spellings, grammar or elements of the story.

Of course, I did not start each day with no idea where the story was going. Because while the first draft was written in less than three months, it took close to eight months to work through the story idea, plot, and character arcs. Only once I was certain most of it would fit together did I begin. That provided a guide to show where the story was meant to be going each day. There was flexibility to add in ideas, providing they meshed with the end goal, and that happened. There was enough ambiguity in the penciled framework to allow for new moments of inspiration to fill the gaps as they appeared.

But the 11 months of pre-planning and writing is not the whole journey to date. Even before the lengthy framework building, the genesis of Alice and the mentally piecing together of the jigsaw puzzle to make the story work - or at least feasible enough to attempt - goes back a few years.

Alice has now crossed the first milestone. The second draft is about to get underway with a similar writing regime to the first. I will post future progress updates.

Love the song #4: Vacation

The Go Go's at The Greek ampitheatre in Griffith Park, Los Angeles in
1984, exemplifying the carefree, fun music that was their hallmark.

While the 1980s was a diverse decade musically, there are some songs that can be described as capturing the zeitgeist - at least in part. The Go Go's Vacation is one.

A number of the Go Go's other hits, and indeed the band themselves, could equally be declared as defining the mood and spirit of the first half of the 1980s.

They are one of the most successful all-female groups in history that wrote their own songs and played their own instruments. Although it is also true that their success was overwhelmingly American-centric, and less all-conquering in other countries. Britain is a prime example, for while the Go Go's cut their musical teeth in the country's rough and ready punk and ska scene of the late 70s and early 1980s, in the history of British pop culture they are largely a minor footnote. Their biggest global hit Our Lips Are Sealed is generally not associated with them in the UK, but rather with the Fun Boy Three who took their version into the British Top 10, and whose Terry Hall co-wrote the song with Go Go Jane Wiedlin.

The caveat to the above is that after launching a solo career, lead singer Belinda Carlisle became an undisputed global star with hits including Heaven Is A Place On Earth.

But back to the Go Go's. Our Lips Are Sealed, Head Over Heels, and We Got The Beat, could all easily have been my choice for this "Love the Song" post, the fourth in a occasional series where I highlight a song that particularly inspires, uplifts or simply grabs me.

However, I chose Vacation. For me it captures the carefree essence of this brand of 80s pop, which the Go Go's peerlessly produced. It was written on a plane journey by bassist Kathy Valentine as she flew to Los Angeles to join her bandmates. While it has its own little story of holiday romance, it also evokes in words and tone the joy and adventure of a vacation, and the uplift that comes from breaking away from routine and being somewhere different.

From 1981 to 1985, the Go Go's perfectly captured the spirit and feeling of the moment. Sure, it was mostly a slice of Americana, but it was a time when the imagery of 80s Americana was, through music and movies, a driving force far beyond the shores of the US. If you had any doubts about whether or not life was good, you had only to tune into the Go Go's music to get an unambiguous, reassuring "yes."

And the zenith moment for the band was captured in glorious, colour-saturated 80s fashion at an outdoor show at The Greek ampitheatre in Griffith Park, Los Angeles. It was August 1984, the band were at their peak and still a few months away from the first fractures appearing. The Go Go's split the following year, and while they have undergone sporadic reunions throughout the past three decades (Valentine left for good in 2012) - it is this concert, fortuitously filmed in full, that best captures the joy and fun of the Go Go's and their music.



It is hard to pick a single song and concert moment, so I've included two clips from the concert. The first, above, is Vacation - including a moment when an inflatable beach ball hits songwriter and bassist Kathy Valentine as she sings, and Belinda Carlisle misses a line as she laughs. The second video, below, is We Got The Beat - because it rocks.

Nothing cheesy about iPod, so why move it?

End of the line: my current iPod shuffle. Now relegated to history.

Can someone please hit the pause button on the world, because it's getting harder to keep up with all the technological changes.

My go-to personal music machine, the iPod, is the latest gadget to be put out to grass.

In an announcement on Thursday, Apple said its iPod shuffle and iPod nano would no longer be sold. They are the last true iPod devices. The only iPod descendent remaining is the iPhone wannabe Touch.

Like the Sony Walkman before it, and portable CD players, the iPod has seen its day and the world has moved on. It's 16 years since the original iPod was launched. It was chunky, and in today's world of streamlined portable personal electronics would be considered a brick.

My first iPod was a 4th generation version (2004) of what is now referred to as the "Classic" model. It made sense to have one. I was about to relocate to Bermuda, but I hadn't done enough upper-body gym work to handle carrying a suitcase filled with my entire CD collection. So I transferred the music to the 20GB drive on the iPod, and still had a handsome amount of storage space left over.

Later, I transitioned to the smaller shuffles, going from the 1st generation model that resembled a USB stick, to the stubby 2nd generation and finally the ultra small 4th generation.

The Mp3 players were my home music machine, and I'd occasionally wear one when exercising and running long distances. But a combination of rain, sweat, and constant shaking proved fatal for the first three devices. I no longer wear an Mp3 when running, so my third shuffle (appropriately named after my current running gait) still works after many years. I use it at home for my music fix, particularly to break the monotony of ironing, and as an essential relaxing distraction when travelling.

'Old school' camera used: a photo with Michael Beck

Call me old school (that's Mr Old School, if you please), but I loved these tiny Mp3 players for their portability and uncluttered design functionality.
And on the subject of old school, when Heather and I had a photograph taken with Michael Beck last year, we were the odd ones out. Everyone else was wielding camera-equipped smartphones, while we pulled out a point-and-shoot digital camera. The Warriors actor even commented: "You guys are old school."

Today, I use my smartphone more than ever. For a start, it is no longer a BlackBerry, for which I believe I earn a bunch of brownie points.

I opt for the camera phone over the trusty point-and-shoot about 80% of the time. And it comes in handy for email checking, occasional internet use and interview recording (no need to carry an old school diction recorder).

I've yet to use it for listening to music, but it is clear that is the way ahead. The popularity of streaming music through smartphones is the primary reason for the cliff-falling sales of iPods.

The world is changing, and as in Dr Stephen Johnson's book, Who Moved My Cheese? it is all about adapting to change and looking for the new cheese, and perhaps finding it to be superior to the old, vanished stuff. We'll see.

For now I'll plough on with my iPod shuffle, while making a few experimental forays into the world of smartphone music  - just in case the old school cheese vanishes.

Bathtub racing with a Strangler

Pom-pom cheerleaders for the bathtub race challenge, led by JJ Burnel,
far right. I'm peaking between the two cheerleaders on the left.

Build a boat from old bathtubs, make it look like a Viking longship and then race it in the sea. As madcap enterprises go, on a scale of one to ten, it was right up there at 12.6.

Those who have read Eating Clouds will already be familiar with this chronicled adventure. But as this weekend marks 31 years since the Ravenlunatic sailed to sea - and with a bunch of dusty photographs from the whole shebang resurfacing during the past year - it seemed timely to look back on this detour from life's serious stuff.

It all started when Jean-Jacques Burnel, bass guitarist with punk/new wave band The Stranglers, watched the annual international bathtub race at Cagnes-Sur-Mer, near Nice, in the south of France in 1985. He wanted to assemble a team for the following year, and early in 1986 put an invitation out through the Stranglers Information Service seeking fans willing to come together to build a bathtub boat.

After the first meeting: Why own a London taxi if you're not
going to test how many people can sit on the roof at the same time?

For me and best pal Rob, being "up for a lark" was a quientessential part of life at 19. So we trundled 100 miles for the first meeting of The Challenge group in a semi-detached house in North London. A mixed group of about 20 gathered. JJ came too. We drew up a plan of action, indicating which components we could source for the bathtub boat and bring along to the next

Jean-Jacques Burnel, left, helps with the construction of the boat
during the first working weekend at Achmed's house in Barnet.

gathering, when work would begin. Before departing we tested the structural integrity of the roof of a London black cab by sitting on it for a team picture.

I secured a dozen large plastic containers that could be used as buoyancy for the boat. These were fitted in place at the first working weekend, where the bathtub boat started to take shape. The design was a Viking longship, after an instrumental track by The Stranglers on their 1979 album The Raven. The main sail and team t-shirts would feature the Raven logo from the album. The boat would be known as the Ravenlunatic.

The boat was soon in transit, or rather strapped to the top of a transit van. We took it to a nearby public pond in Barnet, North London to test its seaworthiness. Who knows what the locals thought of this motley bunch paddling the lake in three bathtubs, however one of them not only thought "call the police" - they actually did.

Call the cops: The test run on a lake in North London.
JJ leads the way. I'm the third one along, officer.

Two police officers arrived, having been told that some kids were messing about on the lake. The officers were surprised to find the "kids" were clearly not wet behind the ears (well, not yet as we hadn't capsized). JJ was a virtual elder statesman kid at 34. The lead officer gave an obligatory spiel about the importance of observing the rules of water safety, then beat a retreat. Meanwhile, we were delighted the boat floated, albeit in a slightly Loch Ness Monster, bouncy fashion. A bit of lateral strengthening was needed.

The boat building and testing then moved to rural Cambridgeshire. A quarry lake near JJ's home became the venue for further "sea trials". The bathtubs were painted black, a dragon masthead was added along with a central mast and black sail with the depiction of a red raven.

Ravenlunatic: a photo from the Record Mirror music magazine of the
boat being tested on the quarry lake. I'm beneath the sail.
The other visible crew members are JJ, Achmed, Grant and Nik.

With the boat now starting to resemble a Viking longship, a call was made to a freelance music press photographer encouraging him to hasten to the lake near St Ives for a few snaps.
A group of us, including The Stranglers' keyboardist Dave Greenfield, hopped into Nik's black cab - the one with the now slightly dented roof - and assembled at the lake to take the boat out for a few laps before the photographer arrived.

The afternoon was ticking away - where was the photographer? There was a call. He had reached St Ives, but it was St Ives in Cornwall, some 300 miles away.
Fortunately, a second photographer was despatched and reached the lake before the sun went down to capture the Ravenlunatic in all her glory. The snaps appeared in the Record Mirror and Melody Maker music papers.

Everything was ready. At the beginning of July a 52-seater coach took the team and the boat almost 800 miles to the South of France. The bathtubs were stowed in the luggage compartments. A further 20 supporters joined the trip, helping reduce the cost-per-head of the epic journey. With everyone decked out in black Challenge t-shirts, featuring the raven, we turned heads on the promenade at Nice. Viking headgear, fake red beards and our posse of pom-pom cheerleaders completed the scene. We were ready to rumble.

Stormy weather: lending a hand as the Ravenlunatic is reassembled.
The crouching man who looks like a coach driver - was our coach driver.

The Ravenlunatic was reassembled on a stony beach at Cagnes-sur-Mer, a few miles from Nice. A race team was picked from the original core group. The rest of us helped and added vocal support from the beach and quay.

Come and have a go: Ravenlunatic mingles among the competition
at the bathtub race championships in Cagnes-Sur-Mer. But all boats
that braved the race course were swiftly sunk by a freaky storm squall.

Something freaky happened to the weather. A storm squall suddenly blew in from nowhere, which meant the race itself did not really take place. The boats played around in the safety of the walled harbour, until a few tried their luck against sea god Neptune, including Ravenlunatic. None survived intact.

But really the escapade was less about the actual race and more about putting together a team, and over the course of four months building a faux Viking longship from a few bathtubs, having fun and forging friendships along the way. The next day the coach was driven into the wooded hills surrounding Nice where there was a freshwater lake that JJ knew about. There we spent an afternoon swimming and floating around in salvaged pieces of the Ravenlunatic. Among those at the picnic was graphic artist Jean-Luke Epstein, who designed the majority of The Stranglers' record covers during the 1980s. Mr Epstein, who died earlier this year, had lent assistance with the construction of the boat.

Madcap adventure complete: a final team group picture, with additional supporters, in front of our coach.
 Look closely and you will see one of the remaining pieces of Ravenlunatic - the dragon masthead

Before leaving the idyllic location we posed in front of our trusty Wallace Arnold coach for a mass picture of crew, boat-building team and supporters. And then it was over.
There are key moments in life that never fade. For me, the spring and summer of 1986 is one. It was about having a spirit of adventure, going into the unknown, doing something a little crazy and different, and having fun. It was a madcap enterprise worthy of celebration.

Footnote: By coincidence, The Stranglers next record was called Nice in Nice and was sung by JJ. It was released a few months after the bathtub race, although the song has nothing to do with that particular adventure. In the video, the band wore prison clothes, referencing their arrest and incarceration after a riot broke out during their 1980 concert at Nice University.

Bye bye, America's Cup

Oracle Team USA at the end of a race during the 35th America's Cup.

After five weeks of thrills and spills as the fastest yachts in the world raced one another, the 35th America's Cup is over. Regarded by many as the pinnacle of the sport, it brought an added dimension to the island during the past month.

A purpose-built 39-acre island was created to hold an event village where spectators could watch the action and enjoy live entertainment and other activities that came along with the Cup. Although it is the oldest sporting trophy in the world (the "Auld Mug" dates back to a challenge race in 1851) I have to admit that until a few years ago I only had the vaguest of ideas about what the America's Cup was. My faint recollection was from mentions I recall hearing while travelling in Western Australia in 1988, the year after Fremantle had hosted the event.

All that changed two years ago when the defenders Oracle Team USA decided to base themselves and the cup match in Bermuda.

One by one the teams started to relocate here and practice sailing on the Great Sound. Oracle led the way, and I admired how they conducted themselves - getting involved in the community, helping with charities, visiting schools and setting up educational opportunities around the sport, including two sailing programmes for young people.

With Oracle skipper Jimmy Spithill, second from right, after the
Sir Stanley Burgess 5K road race in May 2016.

Oracle team members also showed up at public events and took part in non-sailing sporting activities. The Oracle team last year ran a relay formation in Bermuda's most famous race, the May 24 half marathon. And I can attest that skipper Jimmy Spithill was also a tenacious competitor in a 5K race a few weeks earlier. For three miles we engaged in a relentless tussle, never gaining more than a few metres' advantage before switching positions again. In the end, Spithill gained the upper hand and powered away to the finish. That taught me a lot about the "never give up" attitude of the man who had pulled off one of sport's greatest comebacks when he went from 8-1 down to win 9-8 in the previous America's Cup in 2013.

The America's Cup brought a two-year buzz to the island that reached a crescendo from late May until the final race on Monday, when challenger Emirates Team New Zealand completed an impressive 7-1 win against Oracle. Thousands of people made almost daily visits to the event village, while millions more around the world watched live TV coverage and highlights.

Meeting Jono 'The Bear' Macbeth, left, and Sir Ben Ainslie.

Bermuda put on a great show, with a smooth running operation, relaxed atmosphere and an event village that catered for young and old. The weekend before it all began, Heather and I met Sir Ben Ainslie and Jono Macbeth of the Land Rover BAR team at a promotional event. And we experienced the busy first day of the Cup - which under brilliant clear skies included the first set of races, an opening ceremony celebrating Bermuda's heritage, a short concert by Wyclif Jean, and stage appearances by the six teams from France, Britain, Sweden, Japan, New Zealand and the USA.

The event village from the media centre.

The event village was a microcosm of world society with its mixture of locals and the overseas visitors, and many decked out in replica jerseys and t-shirts of their favoured Cup team.
Other nations in the Youth Team America's Cup contest included homegrown Team BDA.

Bermuda's waters were filled by spectator boats, visiting yachts and superyachts, and numerous sailing events held in conjunction with the main attraction.

Ferries to and from Dockyard were invariably busy, particularly during the weekends of the America's Cup. Excitement and friendliness was present in abundance among friends and strangers. The event village included a children's play area, a fun educational tent where aspects of the sport were revealed in a "hands on" way, astro grass to relax on, bean bags, sunshade tables, and island-centric food and drink outlets.
Even if you could not get there in person, the racing drama and post-race press conference were broadcast worldwide on TV and the internet. It was a spectacle that lived up to and surpassed high expectations.

Fans greet Peter Burling, helmsman of Emirates Team New Zealand,
shortly after New Zealand won the America's Cup on Monday.

Now that it has finished and everything is being packed up and shipped away, the island seems a little emptier. But there remains a legacy of inspiration and heightened aspirations.

Bermuda salutes all the teams as they depart, but particularly Oracle Team USA who adopted the island as their home these past two years. To all the teams and visitors: "Fair winds and following seas."

BELOW: A short flavour of the America's Cup in this video from the organisation as it thanked Bermuda for hosting the 35th edition.

Love the song #3: Nobody's Diary

Alison Moyet singing Nobody's Diary at a concert in Berlin in 2015.

Nobody's Diary was released by Yazoo almost 35 years ago. It was the fourth and final single from the duo, who had been together for barely a year.

Singer Alison Moyet wrote the lyrics, with Vince Clarke providing the uncluttered synthpop backing that today sounds as remarkably fresh as it did when released in May 1983.

Moyet's powerful, bluesy voice added an extra dimension to Clarke's stark yet innovative synthesizer compositions. It was a potent mixture that stood out from the crowd.

I have chosen Nobody's Diary as the third in this occasional series where I highlight a song that particularly inspires, uplifts or simply grabs me.

Burning brightly like a struck match, Yazoo dazzled for a fleeting moment and then were gone. Two hit albums, four hit singles before they went their separate (and successful) ways.

They quit at the top, and Nobody's Diary was a perfect song to go out on. Moyet's lyrics are a powerful blend of yearning and forthrightness, while Clarke's keyboard playing, with chords crisply described through single line notes, is all the more memorable and powerful for its simplicity.

Yazoo's earlier hits Only You and Don't Go might edge Nobody's Diary when it comes to mainstream familiarity, but for me the richly etched heartache and delivery of Nobody's Diary soars higher.

Below is the official Yazoo video from 1983, followed by a recording of Moyet (minus Clarke) giving a powerful rendition of the song in 2015.

The Carrie Fisher tribute video

This wonderful tribute to Carrie Fisher was shown at the Star Wars Celebration event in Florida on Thursday. The clips and words do a great job highlighting the warmth, humour and humility of Fisher, and bringing home what a remarkable talent she was.

Watching this video reinforced many of the thoughts I shared in the blog post Star Wars: farewell to Carrie and Kenny. I was also struck by the sense of time passing - seeing the 19-year-old Fisher auditioning for the role and starring as Princess Leia in the original film, then reprising the character 40 years later.

The young Carrie Fisher in the mid-1970s with a row of arcade space games

The video tribute includes a clip of the casually dressed Fisher standing in front of a bank of clunky-looking arcade space games. She could be any teenager or young woman of the mid-70s enjoying a moment at an arcade, even though by then she was the iconic heroine of the original Star Wars. I well-remember the era of such arcades, having visited many. For me this is a poignant clip. There is a slightly surreal edge to seeing the young Fisher away from the imagery of Star Wars, relaxing in an arcade like so many young people of the time.

She will be greatly missed. We will see her again in the upcoming Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, when it is released in December. She completed the filming of that movie before she died.

The magic Fisher brought to so many people's lives shines on.

Garfunkel as artful as ever

Art Garfunkel was a mesmorising presence from the moment he took to the stage at the Civic Arts Plaza, in Thousand Oaks, California. His voice belied his 75 years and the forced multi-year hiatus from singing caused by vocal chord problems that prematurely curtailed the most recent Simon & Garfunkel reunion tour.

On Sunday evening it was as though he had never been away. His vocal dexterity seemingly boundless, as it had been half-a-century ago when the songs of Simon & Garfunkel spanned the world, searing into the collective consciousness of those who heard them in the moment, and those who came across them in later years.

That one of the greatest purveyors of popular music can still recreate the nuances of tone and texture that shaped classics such as The Boxer, The Sound of Silence, and Bridge Over Troubled Waters, is a joy.

Yes, the singing showed a degree of fragility, as would be expected from a performer who turns 76 this year. Garfunkel warned he would not be attempting the higher notes at the finale of Troubled Waters, but he and his two backing musicians had come up with an abridged version. "It's a work in progress," said Garfunkel. The standing ovation that followed the song was testament to its effectiveness.

It was a pared-back show, with Garfunkel singing, acoustic guitar by Tab Laven, and piano and keyboards by Dave Mackay. The intimate show was enriched by Garfunkel sprinkling in words of prose and poetry from his upcoming autobiography, to be released this September.

He took us to days gone by, not only the immediate pre-fame years as he and Simon busked around England and Paris, but to his childhood in Queens, New York. However, it was the songs that most magically transported the audience into their own precious memory moments. Scarborough Fair was an early gem for the evening, as was The Sound of Silence, which Garfunkel introduced as "the song that changed my whole life".

Garfunkel spoke of his walking journeys across the US and Europe. While on the latter trek he encountered cows in a field. The animals gathered around as he sang to them and, in their widening eyes, he sensed an inter-species connection through song. The anecdote led into his seminal solo hit, Bright Eyes, a worldwide smash except in the US, where the record company decided not to release it as it did not believe it would fit with the musical scene of 1979.

During the evening, Garfunkel alluded to the magic of connection through song between a performer and audience. He said it was at an early age that he realised he had a gift for singing when he saw how deep feelings, and even tears, were evoked in listeners. He decided to stick with singing and the world was enriched as a result, through the classics of Simon & Garfunkel, and his later solo work including 99 Miles to LA and Bright Eyes.

At the Thousand Oaks concert, Garfunkel's vocals were rich and gently nuanced. In the simplicity of the acoustic show his voice soared freely, taking the audience on a journey along an incredible half-century of music and songs.

I never thought I'd have the opportunity to attend a concert by Garfunkel. So it was by fortunate chance that Heather and I happened to be staying a few miles down the road from the venue, and that we saw a mention in a local newspaper that Garfunkel was due to put on a solo show. It was an evening to savour, and the songs reverberated with crystal clarity in my mind at daybreak each morning as I ran through the canyon trails.

BELOW: A recording of Garfunkel singing Bridge Over Troubled Waters, not at Thousand Oaks, but in New York City a few weeks earlier.

Ultimate writer's distraction - keyboard cleaning

Dismantling and cleaning your keyboard - the ultimate distraction for a writer

Sometimes writing is not easy. And when the words aren't flowing, and it is too painful to look anymore at the empty screen or blank piece of paper, writers are known to find inventive ways to distract themselves.

A tidy up of the desk, a bit of housework, cleaning the windows. You name it, any mundane task will do. Well, dismantling your computer keyboard and giving it a mighty spring clean is one of the more elaborate "get out" distractions. But it has tangible benefits, is quite relaxing and feels therapeutic.

And so I did. Not with my home computer keyboard, which I am happy to say is kept in fairly good condition. But instead the task at hand was my workplace keyboard. Now, it's fairly well-looked after compared to some I've seen in near proximity, but I knew it needed a little attention, and so I set to work and soon discovered that "needed a little attention" was an understatement. Please don't judge me.

Here are six easy steps to guide you (with photos) should you decide to do your own keyboard spring clean.

1. Unplug the keyboard from the computer. Take a photograph of the keyboard before you start. A close up, but showing all the keys. You'll need this as a reference at the end when you put all the keys back in place.

2. Prise off the keys one by one, using a blade, such as a screwdriver head, or rounded butter knife. Slide the blade under a side or corner of the key and lever up.

3. When all the keys are off you'll see how much debris has gathered beneath. You can remove much of this with a small brush. Then use a damp cloth or disinfecting wipes to give the area a thorough clean. Use Q-tips, or ear buds, to get into all the corners (and hey, the verdict is in ... don't push these things deep into your ears. Who knew?)

4. Clean each of the dismantled keys with a wet cloth or wipes. But don't use a cleaning agent, such as alcohol, that could strip the lettering from the keys.

5. Snap the keys back into place. Note you may find some keys have a thin piece of metal underneath. I found two, one was the space bar and the other was a "shift" key. It should be obvious how to align these so they keep that distinctive responsive feel when pressed. Put these keys back in place first as it will make it easier, then replace the other keys (using your original photo as a guide).

6. Tada! Your keyboard looks brand new, is hygienically safe, and you can at last get down to writing that magnificent novel with no further excuses.

Oh wait, the bottom of the oven looks like it needs a scrub. I'll be back shortly.